Bridge - The Scotsman 22/09/12

One of the first techniques that we are taught is to lead towards high cards.

If second hand plays a higher honour he establishes your winners; if he plays low your high cards may score.

When East showed a four-card raise West realised that partner might easily have the right cards for slam. He could not think of a way to discover whether partner had wasted values in clubs, so he simply bid 6H and waited to see dummy. North led the king of clubs, and West saw that dummy was not quite perfect. How would you plan the play?

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There are two obvious losers, the ace of spades and the king of diamonds. The chances of a singleton king of diamonds are virtually nil, and there is nowhere to discard dummy’s second diamond. You can easily establish two spade tricks, which would allow you to throw one diamond from hand on a spade and another on the ace of clubs. Is there any way to get rid of your third diamond? North’s double marks him with most of the outstanding high cards. Suppose you lead a low spade towards dummy’s queen-jack. If North takes his ace you will have three spade tricks, and you can discard two diamonds on the queen-jack and one on the ace of clubs.

If he refuses to play his ace on air you can win the jack, then discard the king on the ace of clubs. Now that you have got rid of your spade loser you can afford to lose a diamond, then ruff your two remaining diamonds in dummy.

This type of avoidance play, placing a defender in a no-win situation, is known as the Morton’s Fork Coup, or the Dilemma Coup.

Note that you must not win the ace of clubs at trick one – taking a premature discard destroys the coup. Ruff the opening lead in hand and draw trumps before playing your low spade.

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